Human Interests

From time to time the newspaper colyumists, in the interest of humor, have published fragments of conversation heard in passing by their contributors. Several years ago the psychologist, Henry T. Moore, analyzed a number of such conversations heard in various places, and found that men converse frequently about business, money, amusements, whereas women seem to be primarily concerned with clothes and decoration.

Recently M. H. Landis and H. E. Burtt, psychologists at the Ohio State University in Columbus, reported to the Journal of Comparative Psychology the results of a similar analysis made on 500 conversations in that community, with a view to comparing them with the records of conversations heard on Broadway, Manhattan, where Dr. Moore made his observations. They listened in on conversations in restaurants, at basketball games, in theatre lobbies, in front of store windows, as well as on the University campus, in barber shops, churches, and on streets. The conversations were classified under ten headings: Business and money, men, women, clothes and decoration, sports, other amusements, college work, health, self, weather.

The results in Columbus agreed in general with those obtained on Broadway. Men's most frequent topic is business--49% in Columbus and 48% in Manhattan. If sports and other amusements are combined, these topics have a frequency of 15% in Columbus and 14% in Manhattan. The third topic of men's conversation is men--12% in Columbus and 13% in Manhattan.

In Columbus, women's leading topics are: Men 22%, clothes 19%. On Broadway the figures are: Men 44%, clothes 23%. The next topic is other women (about 15%). The results were also classified as to the social status of those concerned. Business people talk about business and money in 70% of cases, as compared with 43% for industrial workers and 9% for students.